Protect your profession, Journalists advised

IT IS worrying to see journalists failing to regulate themselves and protect their profession by allowing pretenders to take their place, says Minister of information and broadcasting services Dora Siliya.

Ms Siliya said that the media in Zambia had become compromised and was being dictated to by governments and civil society organizations.

She told journalists at a consultative meeting in Lusaka yesterday that the profession has been polarized by politics hence the need for all practicing journalists to rise above situations and create confidence in the public.

She said there had arguments that the future of Journalism in Zambia was bleak as it was no longer a profession but a by the way thing which anyone could do without a training.

She cautioned Journalists against making themselves cheap by looking for transport refunds at events and receiving bribes (brown envelopes) from sources.

Ms Siliya who is chief government spokesperson has since called for the urgent need to regulate the media before the profession was crushed by masqueraders

And speaking at the same event Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) president Eddie Mwitwa said if Zambia was to regulate the media fraternity there is need to consider whose benefit it would be and why previous efforts to do so had failed.

Meanwhile an academician Elizabeth Chanda has challenged Journalists to be analytical in issues and desist from being part of the crowd that just wrote hearsays.